This invention relates generally to the art of packaging and more particularly to the art of sealing form, fill and seal packages.
Many food and other perishable products are packaged in conventional form, fill and seal-type packages. Such packages are well known and an example of such a process is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,348,851 the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. During the production of form, fill and seal packages it is not unusual to find product entrapped in the cross seal area of such packages with the result being a package which leaks and which should be rejected.
The above reference U.S. patent partially confronts this problem by compressing the package to determine the presence of a leak.
Compression techniques, however, would not always successfully detect the presence of product within the seal area, nor wrinkles within the seal area. An additional problem which occurs during sealing is the contamination of the sealing jaws themselves which would not necessarily be detected by a compression test as described above.